What did famous fashion designers do before they were stars of the industry? For many, they spent their time in school, meticulously learning the trade for which they would become so popular. But for others, the answer to that question is quite different. Former occupations of famous designers we know and love include: secretary, owner of a fruit juice stand, and cabaret singer. The design education of so many famous designers came not from formal education, but the teachings of family and a lifetime of inspiration. Read on, and find out how some of the world’s most famous designers got their start in fashion.
Lilly Pulitzer: Socialite and fashion designer Lilly Pulitzer is known as the "Queen of Prep," with bright, colorful printed clothing. Her brand is very popular in high society, once worn by First Lady Jackie Kennedy, her daughter Caroline, as well as by Rockefellers and Vanderbilts. However, Lilly did not set out to enter the fashion world at all. She eloped with Peter Pulitzer, Jr., who owned several Florida citrus groves. In search of a project for herself, she opened a juice stand with the produce. Of course, she got juice all over her clothes, and in order to camouflage the stains, asked her dressmaker to create a shift dress with bright printed colors. Her dress became more popular than the juice, and she began selling them at her stand, eventually selling more dresses than juice. Her popularity exploded when her old school friend Jackie Kennedy began wearing them and she became the fashion sensation we know now.
Ralph Lauren: Ralph Lauren has created one of the world’s most successful fashion empires. The Polo Ralph Lauren brand is associated with sporty elite, evoking a "look of English aristocracy" with classic tailoring and taste. Ralph began designing his own neckwear while working for a tie company, and became known at his high school for selling ties to his classmates. He studied business at Baruch College before dropping out, then served in the US Army. He worked as a salesman at Brooks Brothers, and eventually was able to open a necktie store under the Polo label, using the financial backing of Norman Hilton. His career as a fashion designer really took off when the male actors in the 1974 film adaptation of The Great Gatsby wore his creations. Forbes estimates Ralph Lauren’s wealth to be $5.8 billion, making Lauren the 173rd richest person in the world.
Kate Spade: Kate Spade is famous for her fashionable handbags and stylish but sensible accessories. Although she did go to school — she is a graduate of Arizona state University — she did not study fashion. Her inspiration for entering the fashion world happened as she was working in the accessories department of Mademoiselle magazine. She noticed that there was a lack of stylish, sensible handbags on the market and set out to make her own, launching her design company in 1993. Her brand has since expanded to include eyewear, organizers, shoes, perfume, and even home items china and bedding. Kate Spade is popular worldwide, with boutiques not just in the US, but in Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Jakarta, and London.
Vera Wang: Beloved by brides, Vera Wang is best known for her work as a wedding gown designer. But she did not set out to become a fashion designer. In fact, she was a talented figure skater, and competed in the US National Championships. However, she left skating behind when she failed to make the US Olympics team, and turned to fashion instead, working at Vogue magazine for 16 years, followed by a stint as a design director for Ralph Lauren. Her entry into fashion as an individual designer did not come until she married her husband, Arthur Becker, and was frustrated with her choices in bridal gowns. Instead of buying a dress off the shelf, she sketched a design and had her own elaborate gown made. She opened a bridal boutique of her own the next year, featuring gowns by famous designers including Carolina Herrera and Christian Dior, eventually launching her own line that was received very highly. She has since gone on to design gowns for high profile clients, including Ivanka Trump, Chelsea Clinton, and Mariah Carey. Wang’s brand has expanded beyond wedding dresses, to include fragrance, houseware, eveningwear, and even figure skating costumes.
Gianni Versace: Although Gianni Versace never went to formal fashion school, his fashion education began at a young age. He grew up helping his mother embroider dresses, cutting and making clothes in her small tailor shop. He sold his first designs out of his mother’s shop before he moved to Milan to design collections for Complice, Callaghan, and Genny. He opened his own boutique in Milan, selling his own creations as well as other labels, before becoming incredibly popular in the 1980s, spreading his boutiques around the world. His fashions became popular with high profile friends of Gianni’s, including Madonna, Elton John, and Diana, Princess of Wales. Although Gianni was murdered in 1997, his legacy lives on through the Versace label, one of the world’s most popular international fashion houses.
Tommy Hilfiger: Tommy Hilfiger’s parents wanted him to be an engineer. But instead of studying engineering in college, Hilfiger decided to start working in retail. He got his start in fashion as he bought jeans and pants in New York City to bring home, customize, and resell at a downtown store in his hometown Elmira, New York. He later opened his own store, but it failed due to a shift in shopping traffic in Elmira. But we all know that this initial failure did not keep Hilfiger down, and in 1984, he founded the Tommy Hilfiger Corporation, which reached revenues of over $1.8 billion in 2004, and earned Tommy Hilfiger the title of Menswear Designer of the Year by the Council of Fashion Designers of America in 1995. The Tommy Hilfiger Corporation was purchased by Phillips-Van Heusen in March 2010 for $3 billion.
Tom Ford: Fashion designer Tom Ford’s education is varied, with a stint at NYU studying art history, and earning a degree in architecture at Parsons The New School for Design, although he did spend his final year at Parsons studying fashion. Tom spent several years working for other designers before launching his own line, moving from Cathy Hardwick to Perry Ellis, and then to Gucci, where he became creative director before moving on to his role as creative director for YSL. It was only in 2005 that the Tom Ford brand was created to produce menswear and accessories, as well as a beauty brand with Estee Lauder. In addition to his work as a fashion designer, Tom Ford created a film production company, Fade to Black, and made his film directorial debut with A Single Man.
Christian Dior: Christian Dior was the most influential designer of the late 1940s and 50s, and still remains popular today. Dior once clothed the likes of Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth, Marlene Dietrich, and Princess Margaret. He began his career in fashion by selling fashion sketches outside his childhood home for approximately 10 cents each (which are surely worth much more than that today). He worked with other fashion designers, including Robert Piguet and Lucien Lelong before becoming an independent designer. In 1946, he debuted with his first collection from his own fashion house, revealing voluptuous designs with shapes and silhouettes not seen from designers in that time. His designs used lots of fabric, even in a time when it was scarce, a look that was eventually embraced in the post-war era, and coined as The New Look. Even after his death, Christian Dior designs have remained popular. The first collection after his death, designed by a young Yves Saint Laurent, was particularly sensational. Christian Dior S.A. is now the world’s largest luxury goods firm., and operates about 160 Christian Dior Couture boutiques worldwide.
Elsa Schiaparelli: Often compared with her rival Coco Chanel, Italian fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli is often considered the "most innovative and influential dress designer of the 20th century." Her designs took fashion to a new height as an art form, with heavy influence from noted surrealists, as well as collaborations with Cocteau and Dali. She studied philosophy at the University of Rome, but not fashion. Her first notable fashion creation was made on the fly; she was invited to a ball in Paris, but having no ball gown, Elsa made one by wrapping blue fabric around herself and pinning it in to place. She went on to create sweaters with surrealist trompe l’oeil images that appeared in Vogue, launching her business to success. Although she enjoyed popularity in her time, she did not keep up with post-WWII fashion, and closed her business in 1954.
Giorgio Armani: Beloved Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani is known worldwide for his tailored menswear looks. However, Armani did not set out to become a fashion designer, rather, aspiring to a career in medicine, which he pursued for two years at the University of Bologna before being called into military service. This experience proved to be fortunate for him, as he worked in a military hospital and realized medicine was not his true calling. He began working in fashion as a window dresser at a Milan department store, moving on to become a seller, then a menswear designer for the Nino Cerruti company, and a highly demanded freelance designer before developing his own style and label. Armani is recognized as an innovator not just in fashion design, but in the fashion industry, as the first to ban models with a BMI under 18 and the first to broadcast his collection live online, as well as proving himself to be a shrewd, unconventional marketer. He is known as the most successful designer from Italy, with a personal fortune of $7 billion.
Steve Madden: Steve Madden is a household name in American footwear, and he got his start at a shoe store where he worked as a teenager. The experience of working at the store left an impression on him, as he recalls. "My boss was 26. He had his own business. He was this really cool guy. He drove a Mercedes. He was my idol." Madden attended the University of Miami for two years until his father stopped paying his tuition, a punishment for his poor grades. He went back into retail fashion, working in a clothing boutique, and then for a wholesaler of women’s boots. Madden launched an unsuccessful line of footwear with a friend, but tried again in 1990, this time successful. He sold his initial run of shoes out of the trunk of his car, and achieved growing success from that point. Steve Madden’s career has not been without hiccups, and he was convicted of securities fraud in 2002, losing his title as CEO of his company and sentenced to 41 months in prison. After his release from prison, Steve Madden, Ltd was named Company of the Year in 2006 at the Footwear News Achievement Awards, and Madden marked the occasion as a chance to improve his company’s image. Despite this major setback, Steve Madden, Ltd boasted revenues of $431 million in 2007, a major feat for the shoemaker without a formal education.
Laura Ashley: Laura Ashley is known worldwide as a talented fabric designer for clothes and home furnishings. Although a student of several schools, she did not study fashion. Her start in the fashion industry occurred during her time as a secretary and new mother, creating tea towels, napkins, and other home items with printed fabric created on a machine in her own home with the help of her husband. She began selling Victorian style headscarves to the John Lewis Department Store and quickly expanded to more shops, selling through mail order as well. It was not long before Laura and her husband Bernard were at the helm of an international company with stores in Paris and Geneva, and approximately 5,000 retail outlets worldwide. Laura’s company was still doing well and on the brink of expansion at the time of her tragic death in 1985. Although a bittersweet ending, there’s no denying that Laura Ashley went far beyond her role as a secretary.
Alexander Wang: Unlike the rest of the fashion icons on this list, Alexander Wang actually did do a stint at a fashion school before finding fame in the industry. He studied for a year at Parsons with an internship at Teen Vogue before dropping out and launching his first collection that rocketed him to fashion fame. He won the CDFA/Vogue Fashion Fund, which included a $200,000 award for expanding his business. Expand, he did. Alexander Wang’s label is now sold around the world at Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, Barneys NYC, and more. Not bad for a fashion school dropout.
